People concerned with portable table and seat combinations have long been concerned with issues of lightness, ease of assembly and disassembly, stability, compactness, of ease of carrying and storage, and in the history of invention these efforts are well documented and there are many portable table and seat combinations having a single handle that are carryable in one hand and so appear more easily portable. Still, in the history of invention concerns for compactness and convenient storage have neglected the fact that a table actually becomes useful when you put something on it. Failing to recognize this concern and incorporate it into their design, table a seat units have typically used a folding table to make a compartment, and said folding table compartment to hold the seats. They have then boasted the compactness of the package and the ease carrying and efficiency of storage not realizing that with such interests up front they forced a person intent on using a portable table and seats to carry the things to make it useful in the other hand. Such oversight has produced a far less practical device than it appears. As obvious as this omission might seem, it plagues the field. So much so that only one patent U.S. Pat. No. 1,641,010 Peterson, and this from 1927, stipulates a folding table compartment that holds seats and a compartment for other things. And of course with the seats also stored inside, the case is bulky and less portable.
In the history of invention there is one portable table and seat in which the seats are not stored inside a table compartment (U.S. Pat. No. 3,765,719, Silver Oct. 16, 1973), but it too is driven by the interests of compactness: “ . . . each of the individual parts fits compactly inside the hollow bench portion so that the entire assembly may be carried in a suitcase-shaped package and stored in a minimum of space.” (1, 28-31). Failing to see the value of an improved storage space, it too falls short of securing a storage compartment. Instead, Silver teaches a compartment that is not only open at the top, but also has four holes in the bottom to receive seat legs.